Have you tried Facebook Live yet?

For those who don’t know, Facebook Live is a live-streaming application that sits within Facebook and to date, the only people who are actively talking about it or promoting it in any way are social media marketers. The rest of us haven’t decided whether it’s something that we would consider for our work and learning.  After all, to many people (I don’t prescribe to this thinking) Facebook is “for family and friends only” and not about “work stuff” but for me, I’m finding this line is drastically being blurred nowadays.

There’s no distinction anymore.  Or at least, it’s simply too hard to keep them separated.

What started out as a way of keeping Facebook for family only, is fast becoming the platform where most people seem to be gravitating BACK to.  Facebook’s acquisitions and blatent copying of other social networks in an effort to bring more people to its platform is evident.

You either love it or hate it….and I’ve long had this begrudging feeling that if I continue to use it then I should expect the crap that comes through it.

Of course, there are the few who haven’t ventured onto Facebook at all for their own personal reasons and I commend them.  Some years back I decided to get off Facebook because I felt it was swamping my life and I was having far more interesting and engaging conversations with people who shared my interests in places like Twitter and Google+ Communities (remember those?).  I even had a lot more blog comments too. (That hiatus lasted 50 days and then quick as a flash, I was back in it again).

But *sigh* those days are gone.

There was more “community” elsewhere than Facebook could ever deliver.  Instead, what we got on Facebook was fake news, ranty people (I was one of them, trust me), adverts and bitchy arguments with people threatening to unfollow others.

As a result, people have stopped contributing in online discussions or moved their conversations behind walls such as firewalls or membership sites or closed groups.  You really have to be like Indiana Jones and go searching to find places online where people are still participating actively and openly in hearty discussions (and by that I mean, more than the few people who always seem to write) in online communities.

So what has this got to do with Facebook Live?

Well in the last few weeks, I have been watching the Facebook Live posts of my friends from Snapchat marketers Sarah Stahl and Chelsea Peitz and organisational psychologist, David Holzmer.  They are the only people in my group of Facebook friends who are using this platform to show and share their work, the process of their thinking and to share their learning…and they’re not even in Learning and Development.

They’re doing it naturally, openly and genuinely.

Being able to live stream your thoughts in real time while in front of the camera and sharing directly to your Facebook Community, is a great way to present and show your work.

So it got me thinking that for me, this is indeed a small but welcome change to my Facebook feeds.  It humanises my feeds somewhat because I can watch and learn from my own Facebook friends and ignore the 99% of the other crap that’s on it by way of adverts.  However, I don’t know people will feel if their Facbook feeds are then filled with live streamed videos from every man and his dog.  It could end up being overkill.

So I’m thinking that live streaming does have a place but you’d want it to be structured in such a way that people will PICK your video out from the myriad of others because you entertain and educate them.  You also have to have the knack of being able to talk in front of a camera, deal with things that could go awry while filming and think on your feet.

Live streaming is one action that has always scared me because it’s synchronous – it’s LIVE.  There’s no chance of editing (unlike my video editing in iMovie or Snapchat) and there’s greater chances of things going wrong.  However, the positive is that if you do it well enough, you could end up using this platform for activities such as:

• Your own educational “TV” program on certain times of the day and week
• Reflective learning practice to share your work and learning
• Vlogging
• Broadcasting and promoting other things that you’re working and learning

International Work Out Loud Week is on 5 June to 11 June this year and I’ve been toying around with the idea of trying out live streaming on Facebook Live and do what courageous Sarah Stahl did to learn how to do this in her 25 Day Live Challenge.  It’s now or never I guess.  I’ve got to get over this fear of being tongue tied on camera – see the red light countdown and then JUST TALK.

What do you think? Has anyone live streamed?  What was your experience of it?